Samsung Galaxy S10+ .

   It's hard to believe that it's been almost 10 years since Samsung released the first Galaxy S smartphone, but here we are with the Galaxy S10, and it's easily the best Galaxy S yet. But if the first few Galaxy phones were close copies of the iPhone, enough so much that Apple actually sued Samsung and won, the Galaxy S10 shows that Samsung has evolved its flagship to offer almost everything the iPhone doesn't. It's got a headphone jack, expandable storage, fingerprint scanner, and almost no notch. You could practical lycall it the anti-iPhone. But it does share somethings with the iPhone, like the fact that it's expensive. The S10 starts at $899, theS10 Plus that I have here starts at $999 and goes all the way up to 1600 bucks. That's like three basic model OnePlus 6Ts. This may be the best Galaxy S phone ever, but it's also far and a way the most expensive Galaxy S phone ever. (upbeat music) The S10's hardware is very nice. It's exactly what you'd expect for a phone that costs this much. It's an evolution of what Samsung started four years ago with the Galaxy S6. Has aluminum sides with a polished finish, and front and rear glass. Now, on the S10 and the S10 Plus, the glass curves into the frame, which makes it feel great in your hand and more comfortable to hold, even though these are really big phones. Now, on that point, theS10 Plus is definitely not a one hand phone, not for me at least. If I were to purchase it,I'd probably put a case, and maybe even one of thosePopSockets on the back to make it easier to hold and use. If you do want something smaller, Samsung has a regularS10, and then the S10e which we're going tocover in a separate video, so stay tuned for that.

         Now, like I said before,there's a headphone jack down at the bottom,Samsung actually includes some pretty nice wired headphonesthat plug right into it. Plus, loud stereo speakers for when you're not wearing headphones. Like the last few Galaxy S models, the S10 is water resistant, has fast wired and wireless charging, and you can expand thestorage with a microSD card, though I think most peoplewill probably be pretty happy with the 128 gigs it comeswith in the base model. You can even use the S10 towirelessly charge another device like Samsung's new Galaxy Bud headphones, or Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch, but I really have found much use for that beyond just showing it off. The big annoying thingwith the S10's hardware is the same as it has been forthe last few Samsung phones. There's a hardware buttondedicated to launching Bixby. Now fortunately, Samsungis going to let you finally reprogram it to something more useful, like say maybe launching the camera. But sadly, you can't use tolaunch the Google Assistant. And this is all I'mgoing to say about Bixby, because it's still bad, and you should still avoid it if possible. Inside, the S10 is thefirst phone I've used with the Snapdragon 855 processor, and performance is really fast. It's smooth and responsive, and there's no real lag anywhere. I don't think it's as blisteringlyfast as a OnePlus phone, but I've got no realperformance complaints here. I also don't have any complaintswith the battery life. I don't think the S10 Plusis breaking any records, but it's reliable enough that I just don't have to worry about it. I've been able to gettwo days between charges with light usage, and have no real trouble making it a full day with heavy usage. But it is a big phone, with a big battery, so this is the kind of batterylife that I kind of expect at this point. (upbeat music) The S10 Plus's displaydoes not disappoint. It's a 6.4 inch HDR10+ OLED screen, that gets super bright, andhas rich, vibrant colors and great viewing angles. The screen stretches all the way to the top and bottom of the phone, with just the tiniestof borders around it. Now, Samsung seems to have toned down its super aggressive saturation this year, so the normal videomode, which is what I use this screen in, looks really pleasing, and not eye searing, like it used to.

         But, that isn't particularlynew or exciting. What is exciting is what'sembedded in this display. As you probably alreadynoticed, the S10 doesn't have a notch cut out for itsfront facing camera. Instead, it has thisweird hole punch shape off to the right side. On the S10 Plus, that houses two cameras, the main camera, and secondone for depth effects and portrait mode. Is this any better than a notch which would just be inthe middle of the screen instead of off to the side? I don't really think so. In fact, I would rather have a notch since at least that has some symmetry. This hole punch design pushes the battery and networkindicators off to the left, and it just looks weird whenI'm looking at it all day long. You can choose to hidethe front cameras entirely with a uniform black bar across the top, but that's just like addinga giant bezel to the top, and looks even worse. Sometimes, that black bar shows up depending on which app you're using. Here's what it looks like when I read an article in Pocket, for example. None of this is the end of the world, the S10's display still looks really nice, and it's probably one of the best actual panels you can get on a phone. I'd just rather havea notch in the middle, but I'm sure you'll let me know in the comments if you disagree. The other thing that'sembedded in the screen is the new fingerprintscanner which has been moved from the back of thephone up to the front. The scanner's ultrasonic,which is a little different from the optical ones we've seen on OnePlus and other phones. That's supposed to makeit a bit more reliable and harder to spoof. It can be hard to find, butit's about half an inch up from the bottom, and ifyou're using a lock screen it'll actually show youwhere to place your finger. But it's not a big area,and if you're not deliberate with your finger placement,it can be easy to miss. And this scanner is definitely not as fast as traditional capacitiveones, and I often have to try a couple of times before it will unlock. I'd just rather have a Face ID system that requires less work to use, or at the very least, and oldschool fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone.

         Now, the S10 does have aface unlocking feature, but you should know that it's just using the camera to look for your image. There's no 3D mapping,or advanced scanning. So it's not as secure asthe fingerprint scanner, or Apple's Face ID. I was actually able to unlockit with a video of my face played on another phone, so there you go. (hip hop music) Here's the main takeawayyou should know about the S10's camera. It is perhaps the most versatile of any of the mainstream phones. That's because the S10 hasthree cameras on the back, which give you different perspectives at the click of a button. There's a standard camera,a telephoto camera, and then a brand new ultra-wide camera. It's like having a wholecamera bag full of lenses built right into the back of your phone, and it lets you capture perspectives, especially that super wide one that you just can't get with an iPhone or a Pixel. One weird thing to noteabout this, though? The S10's portrait modeuses the main camera instead of the telephoto,so your portrait shots are going to come out pretty wide, maybe wider than you expect. It's kind of like how the iPhone XR works, as opposed to the XS. Now, aside from the new lens, the camera performancereally hasn't changed much from last year's S9 Plus. The S10's camera is still very good, with fast focusing, fast launching, and generally great performancein most lighting situations. But if you didn't like the way the photos from the S9 looked, you probably aren't goingto be swayed by the S10. Personally, I find itoverexposes more than I prefer, which does make for a brighter image, but it sometimes causes things like skin tones to look unnatural. It also has a warmer look than the iPhone, and especially the Pixel,which can make images look a bit more yellow than I like. Now, for HDR, Samsungbasically splits the difference between the iPhone and the Pixel. It's not as moody as Google's phone, but it doesn't pull up shadowsas much as Apple's does. And that's partly becauseit doesn't really need to, because it's already overexposing the shot more than Apple would. Samsung has added some newsoftware tricks to the camera. It has a feature that will help you compose your shots better, which is kinda cool, becauseit can help you avoid crooked lines in your photos.

         But, I didn't end upusing it all that much. It also does have a night mode, but unlike the Pixel,you can't just turn it on whenever you want. You need to be in a really dark area, less than one lux of light, and be using the scene optimizermode for it to trigger, and even if you do all that, it still doesn't work as well as Google's Night Sight anyways Over on the video side though, the S10 is way moreimpressive than the Pixel and even gives the iPhonea run for its money. You can shoot in up to4K, 60 frames per second with the main camera, or 4K, 30 FPS with the ultra-wide, or the telephoto. There's a new super steadystabilization feature that makes really smooth footage, but just know that will lock you to 1080p and the main camera when you turn it on. Finally, the stereo soundthat's recorded by the dual mics on the S10 is actuallyquite good, and better than what I'm used to hearing frommost other Android phones. For the front camera, thenew 10 megapixel sensor with autofocus producesreally sharp images, and there's even a software button to get a little bit wider of a view if you're shooting a group selfie. Now, Samsung does do some prettyaggressive noise reduction and skin smoothing,especially in low light, but thankfully, the beauty modes are all turned off by default. Then there's the portraitmode on the S10 Plus, it's pretty decent, but it's not perfect, just like any otherportrait mode you can get on any other phone, andthere's a couple of new effects that you'll probably use once,and then never touch again, kinda like Apple'sportrait lighting stuff. For many years, Samsung phones have always had super temptinghardware that was let down by lousy software. I'm happy to say that'snot the case with the S10. Its software isn't perfect, and I definitely have some complaints, but overall, it looks nice, makes sense, and is mostly easy to use. Samsung's calling this software One UI, and it's also now availableon last year's S9 phones, which my colleague Dieterjust did a video about, so you should go check that out, but the gist is Samsunghas finally built software that works with its big phones. It has designed muchof the user experience to make it easier to usethese giant screened phones by putting a lot of the importantstuff down by your thumb, so you don't have to reachto the top to get it.

         But I'd still like tosee more improvements. I ended up using thedefault three button nav bar instead of Samsung's gestures, because they're just kind of confusing. There're also still abunch of duplicate apps, like two email apps, two app stores, two browsers, et cetera, and so on. I wish Samsung would justlet me choose which ones to install when I'm setting up the phone. Plus, I've been using an unlocked model, so you can expect carriersto make this even worse with their own apps. Is anyone ready for VZ Messenger? And the main nagging questionwith Samsung software is how long is it goingto take to get updates? Google's going to release Android Q sometime later this year. And you'll probably haveto wait another half a year or more before it arrives on the S10, if last year's scheduleis anything to go by. (drum music) It's easy to dismiss the S10as just another Galaxy phone without anything reallynew or groundbreaking, and you'd really not be that wrong. After all, Samsung itself is going to release a crazy folding phone in like, two months, andthe S10 is just another slab smartphone like we've had for years. But this is the Android phonethat more people will buy than any other, and it providesas strong an alternative to the iPhone as you can find. It really comes downto personal preference. Are you so married to iOS and iMessage that you'll never leave? Or are you looking for something that has features that youjust can't get on the iPhone? If you're the latter, wellthen the S10 is here for you. Likewise, if you're debatingbetween the S10 and a Pixel, the question is how importantare software updates and night photography to you? If those things aren'tvery high on your list, the S10 is better thana Pixel in virtually every other respect, andfinally, if you're wondering whether or not the S10Plus is worth nearly double the cost of a OnePlus 6T, your money will gotowards a better display, better speakers, waterproofing,wireless charging, and a much better camera. 

        That might be enoughstuff to make it worth it, provided you actually careabout all of those things. It's been 10 years sincethe first Galaxy S phone, and it's clear that Samsunghas come a long way. Now, I'm curious tosee, where's it gonna go in the next 10 years? Hey, thanks for watching. For more on the S10, theS10 Plus, and the S10e, be sure to check out theverge.com. We've got way more infoin our written reviews on the site, if you reallywanna dive into these. Let me know what youthink about the S10 Plus, and what do you wanna know about the S10e? We're gonna be tackling that one next.